Spiral-wound cylindrical electrochemical cells may need to be cooled because their temperature rises in use, or on the contrary they may need to be heated when they are required to operate at low temperature.
To this end, it is known to control the temperature of a battery by causing a heat-conveying fluid to flow in the vicinity of the individual cells.
For example, document DE-A-3 416 745 discloses a device for cooling an individual cylindrical storage cell in which a liquid circulates in channels that are spiral-wound around the bottom portion of a cylindrical core whose top portion contains the electrolyte. If applied to a battery of storage cells, that solution would not enable temperature to be distributed uniformly between all of the cells of the battery (particularly concerning corner cells), supposing the cooling coil were to surround the entire battery, or else would lead to excessive bulk if each of the cells in the battery were to be provided with its own cooling coil.
According to document DE-4 102 532, the particular problem of a battery made up of cylindrical storage cells disposed side by side is solved by filling the space between the cells with a porous material in which a heat-conveying fluid flows by capillarity. However, the fluid flow rate is small and the flow path is ill-defined.